(en) Irish Anarchist Review #6 - Authoritarianism and the early Irish State

Date
Sat, 15 Dec 2012 12:51:01 +0200

Fin Dwyer looks at the latter years of Irelandâs first post independence government, which
having successfully suppressed political opposition and the workersâ movement, went on to
âattack women and enforce their moral and ethical values on wider societyâ. From the
clearing of prostitutes from the Monto and the filling of the Magdalene laundries to the
institutionalisation of child abuse, he describes how the stateâs close association with
the Catholic Church played a decisive role in forming attitudes to women and sex that have
had a devastating effect on Irish society that can still be felt today.

In the first part of this article, carried in the the previous edition of IAR, Fin Dwyer
looked at the foundation of the Free State, the suppression of political opposition and
the workers movement. In this article, he looks at the period of Ireland's first
post-independence government, Cumann na nGaedhael, as state and church moved on to attack
and discipline women and any other groups seen to deviate from their vision of
Catholic-Irish morality.

In the mid 1920âs, the Minister for External Affairs, Kevin OâHiggins, had become the
Cumann na nGaedhael governmentâs key political influence. At the time, the Catholic Church
effectively formed the social policy of the Free State.

This had little to do specifically with Cumann na nGaedhael and more to do with the fact
that the Catholic Church was arguably the most powerful institution in Ireland in 1923,
even more powerful than the state itself. Cumann na nGaedhael were in no position to stand
up to the church, but had little inclination to do so either. Indeed, the Catholic Church
had been the key influence on Irish society since before the famine and the entire
nationalist movement of all sides had been inculcated with its moral and cultural
attitudes, as were large sections of the population.

In this context, the social values of the church were effectively the values of Cumann na
nGaedhael, highlighted best by W.T. Cosgrave, the president, who suggested that the upper
house in the Free State could be a âtheological board which would decide whether any
enactments of the DÃil were contrary to [Roman Catholic] faith and morals or notâ Indeed,
Kevin OâHiggins him- self had failed in an attempt to become a priest. Rather than one
influencing the other, both church and state became almost inseparable and at times
indistinguishable on social policy.

Once in power, Cumann na nGaedhael soon set about trying to implement as policy what were
Catholic social values. There was no debate on these issues, they were enforced regardless
of their impact. This was to have disastrous consequences particularly for women as, when
fused with Cumann na nGaedhaelâs authoritarianism, Catholic views of women would see them
slowly but surely excluded and denuded of power. Usually this was due to legislative
change, but also on some occasions more forceful methods were used when they deemed it
neccessary.

Attitudes towards Women
The Catholic Church had a deeply sexist view of women in society. As the sociologist Tom
Inglis (1998) points out, they portrayed women as âfragile, weak beingsâ and âfor women to
attain and maintain moral power it was necessary that they retain their virtue and
chastity.â In order to enforce these attitudes, the church portrayed sex as unclean and
immoral and ultimately, womenâs bodies were something to be ashamed of.

This helped generate a deep embarrassment and guilt over sex. Where the church had
substantial influence they could effectively control womenâs knowledge of sex, as the only
place they could talk about it was in confession, where they were berated over the topic
by their priest. Outside of this, the Catholic point of view on womenâs role in society
was that they were to rear children, take care of the family and do little else.

The Nationalist movement in Ireland had been heavily influenced by these ideas and
attitudes, and its formula of an ideal Irish woman was almost identical. Arthur Griffith,
who had died in 1922, had stated that in any Irish house, âyou will meet the ideal mother,
modest, hospitable, religious, absorbed in her children and motherly duties,â clearly
reflecting the ethos of the church.

The reality of 1920âs Ireland
In spite of the significant influence of the church, the reality of life in Ireland in
1922 was quite different. Prior to independence, the church had used its not
inconsiderable social and cultural weight to enforce these ideas. However, Ireland like
many countries across Europe in the period between 1914-23, witnessed great social change,
which undermined the churchâs control and authority. While women were by no means equal
citizens, significant progress had been made.

However, after independence, the church did not only have to rely on its moral, social and
cultural influence. Now, in unison with the authoritarian Cumann na nGaedhael government,
it could use the apparatus of state to enforce its authority over women, particularly when
it came to sex.

Sex
It was around the issue of sex that the church were most vocal and outraged. They viewed
sex as a dirty subject and a sphere where women were largely a corrupting influence.
However, in relation to sex, by 1923, Irish women may not have been as ashamed and prudish
as the church believed they should have been (or as many today assume them to have been).
In 1924, an Inter-Departmental Committee of Inquiry regarding Venereal Disease was tasked
to âmake inquiries as to the steps necessary, if any, which are desirable to secure that
the extent of venereal disease may be diminishedâ. In its unpublished report, they
concluded that âvenereal disease was widespread throughout the country, and that it was
disseminated largely by a class of girl who could not be regarded as a prostitute.â The
report also illustrated that the spread of disease was relatively evenly distributed
across the country, and not limited, as anticipated, to former garrison towns and cities.

Aside from the blatant sexism of the report, which attributed the spread of venereal
disease to women, it clearly indicated a higher level of sexual activity at the time than
is often imagined. For the state and its moral watchdog, the Catholic Church, this was
seen as a great danger to the churchâs authority and control, and to the nationalist
vision of what womanhood was, i.e., a home-maker.

To combat this, the authoritarianism of the state went into overdrive to suppress sexual
activity. In 1923, strict censorship in film was introduced and films which were deemed
âindecent, obscene or blasphemous or contrary to ... or subversive of public moralityâ
were banned. 1924 saw the restrictions placed on the sale of alcohol, not least as it was
seen as one of the causes of slipping morality.

By 1929, censorship bills enabled the government to ban even the dissemination of material
on birth control. Aside from their moral view on birth control, it was clearly something
that allowed women to gain greater control over sex, while society in general would have a
greater understanding of the sexual process. This was anathema to the Catholic Churchâs
teaching and practice. The attitude toward contraception articulated just how domineering
the Free State was â even discussion on the topic was not going to be tolerated. The
Minister for Justice, James FitzGerald-Kenney (Kevin OâHiggins was assassinated in 1927),
stated in 1928, when the censorship bill was debated in the DÃil:
âIn our [the governmentâs] views on [contraception] we are perfectly clear and perfectly
definite. We will not allow ... the free discussion of this question ... We have made up
our minds that it is wrong. That conclusion is for us unalterable ... We consider it to be
a matter of grave importance. We have decided, call it dogmatically if you like - and I
believe almost all persons in this country are in agreement with us - that that question
shall not be freely and openly discussed. That question shall not be advocated in any book
or in any periodical which circulates in this country.â

This attitude towards sex and the setting of unattainable standards for women was also to
lead to horrific abuse of women on a level that is only becoming really understood in the
last decade. This culture allowed women who had children outside of marriage, who were
raped and spoke of their experience, or even just assertive women, to be committed into
what were effectively prisons run by Catholic nuns. These were the brutal Magdalene
Laundries. The stateâs attitude to this was more than supportive. In 1927, The State
Commission on the Destitute Poor referred to women who had children outside of marriage as
either âfirst time offendersâ or those âwho had fallen more than once.â For single mothers
who managed to hold on to their children (often they were forced to give them up for
adoption), they mostly did so under conditions of exclusion and impoverishment. This lead
to a shameful infant mortality rate of 33% for children of single mothers.

Prostitution
Perhaps the most direct attack on women over the issue of sex came in 1925, when the state
cracked down on prostitution. The prostitute embodied the polar opposite to both the
Catholic Churchâs and the nationalist view of women. Before independence, Dublin had had a
world famous red light district in the North Inner city, known as the âMontoâ, based
around Montgomery street. Although it went into decline after the withdrawal of the
British Army, hundreds of women still worked as prostitutes. Everything about the Monto
horrified the church, not only was it âimmoralâ but they had little or no control over the
sex lives of the women working there.

Prostitutes in the Monto
The Monto was also to a certain extent outside the patriarchal structure of Irish society,
given many of the brothels were run by women. Nonetheless, for the women working there, it
was a very tough life, where they were controlled by madams or pimps. Unfortunately, when
the church and state attacked the area in the 1920âs, they did not have these womenâs
interests at heart. They were concerned with ridding Dublin of a moral scourge as they saw
it, rather than helping people who were being exploited.

Campaigning against the Monto had begun in the early 1920âs, firstly by church
organisations. Lead by a group who would form the Legion of Mary in 1925, Catholic
activists targeted the area, attempting to literally force the prostitutes to convert from
prostitution to home-makers. They operated hostels where former prostitutes could stay,
although they were operated under strict moral guidelines, including the issue that âevery
entrant is made the object of a special and individual attention, directed in the first
place to the creation of moral fibre.â Once a brothel was closed, they moved a family into
the building, effectively ensuring that the prostitutes would be made homeless unless they
stayed with the church-run hostels.
It was clear that the interests of these women were not being taken into account, but
rather more abstract notions of Catholic moral fibre. Frank Duff, who was most synonymous
with this campaign against prostitution, and is often lauded as a great social reformer,
illustrated the thinking behind this deeply sexist âmoral fibreâ. For Duff, âthe only
cause of Syphilis ... is the prostitute lying in wait in cities to tempt men.â In light of
the findings of the 1926 Committee of Inquiry regarding Venereal Disease Ireland, such
statements were completely unfounded, but were indicative of Duffâs prejudices and
disregard for these women.

To âsaveâ these women, they were inculcated with the state and churchâs idea of what they
should be â essentially wives and mothers. The move from prostitution gave these women no
more power, as it was a simple process of replacing the brothel madam with a husband;
through the hostels, the Catholic activists married off the women off as quickly as
possible. Between 1922-23, sixty-one women were married off.

This campaign, where these supposedly âsavedâ women were bystanders in their âliberationâ
from prostitution, was heavily supported by the state. The first hostel was opened at 76
Harcourt Street, a building given to them in 1922 by future president and then Minister
for Local Government, W.T. Cosgrave.

After campaigning for a few years in 1925, the campaign against the prostitutes in the
Monto was stepped up a notch. Several arms of the church, including the Jesuits and the
Legion of Mary, worked with the police in driving prostitutes out of the Monto. After the
church organisationsâ moderate success early in the year, the police launched a series of
raids on the Monto. In March, over one hundred people were arrested and one woman was
imprisoned for 6 weeks for allowing a house to be used as a brothel. Needless to say,
while the church and state succeeded in closing the Monto, they did not end prostitution.
This was a secondary concern; the campaign was mainly about moral aesthetics, no doubt
prompted by the fact that as the Catholics left the Pro-Cathedral on Marlborough Street in
Dublin, they were on the fringe of a red light district.

Child Abuse and The Carrigan Report
The long-term ramifications of authoritarian attitudes fused with the churchâs morality,
which created an environment where sex was something unspeakable, had horrendous
consequences. When a report was carried out into sexual crimes in Ireland - The Carrigan
Report (1930) - it uncovered widespread sexual abuse of children.

In the report, Eoin OâDuffy, the chief of police, stated there had been thousands of cases
of abuse of people under 18 (some under 11) between 1927 and 1929, for which only 15% of
the cases had been prosecuted. Immediately one is reminded of the 1916 proclamationâs most
modest of demands of âcherishing all children of the nation equallyâ. These notions were
long dead by 1930 â the report was never published or acted upon. When it was circulated
to politicians on December 2nd 1931, the Department of Justice attached a cover note
arguing against publication because âit might not be wise to give currency to the
damaging allegations made in Carrigan regarding the standard of morality in the country.â

This policy was continued when Fianna Fail came to power the following year, and the
report was buried. The long-term implications of this are really only being understood
today, as the true extent of child sex abuse emerges. As Fiona Kennedy (2000) pointed out,
had this report been published it may not have stopped all sex abuse, but certainly the
culture of silence that allowed perpetrators abuse children for decades would have been
lessened.

Women and Wider Society
Accompanying the campaigning around the issue of sex, the church and state through the
1920âs brought in several pieces of legislation designed to force women from the workplace
into the home and keep them there.

In 1925, divorce - something that was already something very difficult to attain - was
banned for women. Technically, it was possible for men if they moved to a country where
divorce was legal, but this provision was not open to women. The only option available was
legal separation, but no remarriage. When debated in the Senate, the Countess of Desart
noted the implications of this bill for women, who could be legally separated but not able
to remarry:
âYou condemn her to a life of misery or isolation, for a woman in so false a position must
be ten times more circumspect than any other, if she would safeguard her good name. If
guilty, she must spend the rest of her days as an example of the wicked, flourishing like
a bay tree or as an eyesore in a land hitherto famed for its high ideals of purity.â

Countess Desart was right, but unfortunately this was one of the intentions of the bill;
in order to preserve the family, women would be pre- vented from taking independent action
in terms of divorce or separation. This legislation, reflect- ing the desire to control
women as home makers, was reinforced in the provision in the bill which legally made a
womanâs legal residence that of her husband, even if he lived in a different continent.

Another crucial aspect of controlling women and enforcing the catholic view of the family
was the exclusion of women from public life. In 1924, Kevin OâHiggins first attempted to
exclude women totally from jury duty. This was clearly unconstitutional, as the 1922
constitution enshrined the idea that all citizens were equal. When it was finally brought
in 1927, OâHiggins, a few months from his assassination, had found a way around equality:
women would have to register for jury duty.

In the course of the debate in the Seanad, OâHiggins outlined how he saw women: âI think
we take the line that it was proper to confer on women citizens all the privileges of
citizenship and such of the duties of citizenship as we thought it reasonable to impose
upon them.â This idea, that women had limited capabilities and were unable to bear the
weight of citizenship, was very much to the fore of their thinking and directed policy.
This shaped the overriding aim: the removal of women from the public sphere.

Women working outside the home was something the Catholic Church loathed. In 1925, the
government attempted to limit posts in the Senior Civil Service to men, but this was
rejected in the Senate. A few years later, the bill was forced through, as the Senate
could only reject legislation for a certain time period. Women were thus banned from
progressing past a certain grade, thereby making a successful career in the civil service
impossible. In time, a marraige bar would be introduced, forcing women to retire from the
civil service when they married.

General Society
By the late twenties, the Catholic Church and the Free State alliance had almost total
control over the social life of the vast majority of people. Any threat to this, no matter
how inconsequential, was treated in the harshest of terms. The level of authoritarianism
ruling Irish society was illustrated in Leitrim in the early 1930âs.

Leitrim in the early 1920âs had been like a lot of the country. It was the site of much
republican activity and class struggle. In 1921, an Irish emigrant, Jimmy Gralton,
returned from New York and got involved in local organising of tenants taking over
landlordsâ farms. In the 1920âs, he was very much seen to the left of the political
spectrum, making enemies amongst the establishment in the area. In 1922, Gralton lead the
building of a local community Hall â the Pearse- Connolly Hall - where educational classes
and dances were held. This immediately irked the local Catholic Church as Gralton was
challenging their control over social activities normally held in a church-run parish hall.

Through the 1920âs, the Catholic Church vented much of its moral indignation at such dance
halls and accused them of being sites of debauchery which caused alcoholism and sex
outside marriage. In 1930, the local priest began a sustained campaign against Graltonâs
Pearse-Connolly Hall. This lead to physical attacks on the hall which was eventually
burned down in December 1932 most likely by the local IRA.

Not happy with this, the church, just like in the attack on the Monto in 1925, was able to
rely on the state for support, but their reaction was almost incredulous. For what was
comparatively low-level activity, Jimmy Gralton, a man born in rural Leitrim, was deported
to America and exiled from Ireland. Thereâs little doubt that Gralton could have been
dispensed in more brutal ways - for example in 1931 the republican James Vaugh died in
very mysterious circumstances in a police cell in Ballinamore, Co. Leitrim - but there can
be little doubt that the deportation of Gralton was to serve as a lesson to others.
Indeed, Graltonâs case highlighted just how much control the church-state alliance had
over all aspects of society, including the media. The Irish Times reporting on Graltonâs
extradition emphasised the fact that Gralton was an âIrish Americanâ, which he was not â
he had spent some time in America as an emigrant, where he also became a US citizen. This
masked the fact that the Irish State was deporting someone who was born in the state.

This lie was repeated in the several articles in the Irish Times during March, when
Graltonâs deportation order was delivered. Finally, in August 1933, when Gralton was
deported to the USA, he was called âa returned Americanâ, and the only crime cited was
that he supposedly held âextreme communistic viewsâ. No article in the Irish Times raises
any issue about the right to deport him, indeed it clearly shirked from challenging the
state by frequently and erroneously saying that Gralton was an Irish-American.

It reflects the authoritarian nature of the Free State which was increasingly identifying
what it was to be Irish with the moral, ethical and social values of its political and
religious elite. As Graltonâs case illustrated, they would ruthlessly persecute anyone who
questioned this.

The authoritarianism that shaped the first ten years deeply shaped Ireland far into the
future. In 1932, a faction of the Republican movement defeated in the Civil War, Fianna
Fail, won the election and replaced Cumann na nGaedheal as government. (5 years earlier,
lead by Eamon de Valera, they had broken with the IRA and had formed a new party). The
transition was largely seamless, with Fianna Fail largely continuing in a similar vein to
Cumann na nGaedhael.
It is hard to tell how much they naturally shared the authoritarian views of Cumann na
nGaedhael, or whether they replicated what they saw as a successful model of taking and
keeping power, but they proved more than able to build on Cumann na nGaedhaelâs
authoritarian foundation.

Indeed, it was Fianna Fail who ensured the Carrigan report detailing child abuse was not
published or acted upon. It was they who would deported Jimmy Gralton at the behest of the
Catholic Church, and most all, it was they who delivered a coup de grace of 15 years of
conservative laws, formally incorporating the attacks on women in a deeply chauvinistic
document that was supposed to outline what it meant to be Irish â the 1937 constitution.

The culture created by the all-encompassing authoritarianism became endemic in Irish
politics for decades, leading many Irish people into self-imposed exile. Publishing
anything that disagreed with the Catholic Nationalist ethos was next to impossible. This
produced what can only be described as a stifling monolithic culture, where nothing in any
way challenging was tolerated. By 1923, after W.B. Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize for
Literature, the award received the following stinging criticism from âThe Catholic
Bulletinâ as â...a substantial sum provided by a deceased anti-christian manufacturer of
dynamite.â

It is little surprise then that the more creative- minded followed the urban and rural
poor into what was often miserable emigration. This would prompt Samuel Beckett in his
1956 play, âAll that Fallâ, to reflect: âIt is suicide to be abroad but what is it to be
at home? [...] A lingering dissolutionâ

Over 40 years later, in his emigration song, âThousands are Sailingâ, Philip Chevron could
still write:
âWhere eâer we go, we celebrate,
The land that makes us refugees,
From fear of priests with empty plates,
From guilt and weeping effigiesâ

Conclusion
When looking at The Free State there is little to take from its first ten years, or
indeed, subsequent governments. Most praise comes when historians use âthe litmus testâ of
âthe survival of the stateâ, as Thomas Bartlett did, as recently as 2010. While they were
successful ensuring the state survived (whatever that actually means, given they simply
replicated the administrative practices of the British Empire), for the vast majority â
women, the rural and urban poor, and political opponents - this meant effective removal
from an active role in society, a role that they had fought hard to achieve between 1913-22.

From legislation making public life for women impossible, to the deportation of Jimmy
Gralton, the achievements of âThe Free Stateâ were limited to the restoration of the
pre-World War I social and economic order. They succeeded in preserving a state for the
rich and powerful, in a symbiotic relationship with the Catholic Church. In this context,
those who laud the âachievementsâ of the founders of the Irish State as great men, for no
obvious reason other than the preservation of this state, should reflect on the words of
Mikhail Bakunin, the 19th century Russian anarchist.

âThus, to offend, to oppress, to despoil, to plunder, to assassinate or enslave oneâs
fellow man is ordinarily regarded as a crime. In public life, on the other hand, from the
standpoint of patriotism, when these things are done for the greater glory of the State,
for the preservation or the extension of its power, it is all transformed into duty and
virtue. [...] There is no horror, no cruelty, sacrilege, or perjury, no imposture, no
infamous transaction, no cynical robbery, no bold plunder or shabby betrayal that has not
been or is not daily being perpetrated by the representatives of the states, under no
other pretext than those elastic words, so convenient and yet so terrible: âfor reasons of
state.ââ
_________________________________________
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